Getting close. . . .

This was when I was 36 weeks along. Right now I am 38 weeks. Some of my co-workers have told me that I look like I have dropped. Well it sure does feel like I have dropped. My family have taken a poll of when I will have Natalie. My dear niece said that she thought that I would have her on January 25th, which by the way is my niece's birthday. But mostly everyone says that I will have her in January and not in December, other than my mom. :) We believe we have everything for her but we will see once she is here. Jon is excited and keeps asking her to come out and play. My feet are a little swollen and it's a tight fit when I wear my work shoes. Though I am not swollen bad enough that I can't wear the shoes. I now have the "runway walk". Jon likes to make fun of me when I strout my runway walk.  It's is hard to not waddle when I walk. And it is hard to get out of the chair or to even turn over in bed. But I am enjoying the holidays even though I am in the end of the journey. 

We got our cirb. Jon was sweet and set it up the night that we got it. It didn't take him that long.

Even Anthony and Moses stopped playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 to help set up the crib. Then we just had get the mattress.

The boys did great. And it all came together great. It will be nice to use it in the next couples of months. :)









Thanksgiving this year was at my parent's house. And then Jon's mom had her thanksgiving the weekend of Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it to Moab this year for the Christmas tree hunt but Mom and Mark were really nice to still find us a perfect tree for our first Christmas in our home. It was the perfect height and width.

As you can see we weren't able to get many oranments on the tree. Mom gave us some ornaments but they were to heavy for the trees branches. :(  And this year I found a stocking for Natalie that matches mine and Jon's. I was wrapping presents and had shown Jon that I got some binkies for Natalie that say "I love Daddy" and "Daddy's Princess" on them. He had me wrap them and put them in her stocking. And Jon found a Santa hat that she could wear if she comes before or on Christmas. I am almost done getting all the gifts together. Just have a couple more to wrap and just need to make the cookies. :) 

Next week is going to be a busy week and I think that we are ready for it. :) I hope that everyone has a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Loves,
Mo

Time is flying. . .

This is me at 30 weeks and 4 days. Right now as I am writing the blog I am 32 weeks and 2 days. I would have posted earlier but we have been really busy putting our house together. Yes that is right, Jon and I did purchase a house. :) It was hard but we got there. We painted, added chair rail and fix little hardware things before we actually moved in. Thank you to everyone who helped us get into our place. Now we just have to finish unpacking and de-junking and getting our new windows installed (thank you Devin for the windows). Oh and Christmas decorations, not too many but I would like to have a real Christmas tree to put presents under.

Just a little under 2 months and our little Natalie will be here. We still have a lot to get for her but we wanted to wait for that till we got into the house. Now it is on to getting completely ready for her arrival. :) It is going to a busy holiday season but it will make the last trimester go by fast for me. Has I have heard from others who have been pregnant that the last semester goes by slow. Thank goodness for the holidays, family and friends to keep me busy and on my toes to make time fly.

Well hopefully with everything that is planned for the holidays I will be able to still blog a little about the events. If I don't have time, Happy Holidays to everyone. :)

Car Adventure!

Around June of this year my dear car broke down. The problem was that the coolant was leaking into the engine block and when I drove it the engine would overheat. There were times I was stuck somewhere with an overheated car. The solution at the time was that we would just refill the coolant up every time I went to drive the car. At times I would have 4 gallons of coolant in my trunk ready to go when needed.

Near the end of June it got so bad that I was using 2 gallons of coolant a week. And is me checking the coolant before I drive to work and drive home. Also the coolant for the Alero is not just the general coolant but special GM coolant. Meaning it was about $15 for one gallon which would turn into 2 gallons because we would have to make the coolant 50/50 ourselves by adding water.

So after a month or so of carpooling with Jon to and from work and my car sitting on the side of the road. Jon researched and got much advice from friends on what to do to fix the car he started to take the engine apart himself. With some help of friends and family. You are probably wondering why we just did not take it in to a shop and they could fix. Well if Jon did the labor himself it would cut the price from about $1300 to $600.

To fix the problem Jon had to take apart the engine block and replace this long thin piece called the headgastet. And also had to shave down the heads of the block in order to get it running correctly. Well when Jon and Davey opened up the engine this is what we saw. . .

That peanut butter looking stuff in the engine really should look like black oil not peanut butter. So if you mix coolant and oil together you get PEANUT BUTTER!! :)

Even Davey thinks that it was not a good sign . lol

Well after they got it taken apart and cleaned off. Jon was able to go and get the heads shaved and bought the part in which we needed to not get peanut butter ever again. :)

It took us about a week or so to get all the right parts together and ready to go. Then Jon and his Dad worked on the car for about 18 hours putting it all back together. Once they got the engine put back together they had to flush out the coolant system and the oil in the engine. When they did the first oil change they emptied out about 2 gallons of fluid from the engine. The engine is normally only suppose to hold 4 liters of oil. So we changed the oil a couple more times to clean out all the peanut butter from the engine. Then we took it for a test drive. The car ran perfectly! It did not over heat and the A/C worked which it did not work when it was having problems.

Then we let the car sit for a few weeks and Jon did the last and final oil change. The oil came out the color so we were done fixing the car! YAY! I have my car back! Well almost, I have to now register my car since it was up in August. lol So once that is done we are done fixing the Alero!

And thanks to Anthony for letting us use his car while he was in Europe. :) It has helped us a lot while we were fixing my car. Also thanks to everyone who had helped Jon and I on the Alero. We could not have done it with out the help. Thanks!

BIG Ultrasound.

Today was the day I went in for the second try, big ultrasound. They were able to see the baby's organs better on this visit than the last visit 3 weeks ago. The baby is measuring at 20 weeks and 5 days. I was able to get a DVD of the ultrasound and some pictures.

The baby's little foot.

The baby's hand that was by it's mouth, so the doctor had a hard time to get a picture of it's upper lip area.

The baby's profile. :)

Oh and we did find out what we are having. . . . .

Free Glitter Graphics, It's A Girl Glitter Graphics

We are going to name her Natalie Lee. And as others have already nicknamed LeeLee. :)
I can't wait to decorate her room once we find a house. Wish us luck!

Not yet. . . .

I went in for the ultrasound today. Well the baby is looking healthly even though it is measuring 9 days small. Therefore my OB might push my due date back to January 10th. And since the baby measured small at 17 weeks and 2 days instead of 18 weeks and 4 days. They believed that it was too early to see what the baby's sex will be. So they had me set up another appointment for August 25, 3 weeks away, to be able to see the sex and see the organs. Plus the baby has it's father's stubborness. It was on it's belly they entire time and would not move on bit for the ultrasound tech or the doctor. lol Sorry everyone but we are going to have to wait another 3 weeks to see the sex of the baby. But at the least our baby is healthly. :)

The poll is closed

I had the poll open for a long time. There were more votes for that I am having a boy. So we will see on Tuesday, August 4th on if I am having a boy or girl. I am excited to find out. I will post the findings either the day of or the day after. Thanks for voting!

Loves

More ultrasound pics. . . .

These pictures are of the baby, of course, but they were taken when I was around 10 weeks along. It was part of the intergrated screening test I had done. When we got back from the Cali vacation I had to go in and take the second part of the screening. I won't know till my next pre-natal appointment, August 11th, what the result of the the screening was. But enjoy these pictures cause on August 4th I will have some more pictures of the baby. It's the day we find out the sex of he baby. :)

Oceanside, CA

June 11th through June 18th my Mom rented a beach house condo in Oceanside,California. We first drove down to Vegas after work on Friday the 10th. Stayed the night. Then headed to Oceanside around 10:30. It was HOT in Vegas.

This is the sunset on the way to Vegas.

It didn't seem like a long drive when I, being pregnant, had to stop to walk around every 1 to 1 1/2 hours. It made it easier to drive so far.

We were really close to Oceanside at the time this video was taking. It was awesome enough I had to take a video. :)

Jon and I got to the condo around 4pm Pacific time. It was a great 3 bedroom condo. The only downside when we first got there was that it didn't have any A/C. But we found some fans before everyone else got there and set them up in every room. Little did we know that Oceanside forecast for the week we low 80's as the high and low 60's in the evenings. It was really nice weather and I would have to say I miss it.

This is the view of the beach from our balcony. It was less than a minutes walk away. And it never got really that busy there at the beach. You could always find a spot not matter what time of the day you went down.

Our first day at the beach was on Sunday the 12th. It was early in the morning so the fog was still there. But still it was a nice day at the beach.

Richard, Mekensy, Arcadia, Jon, Amanda, Mom, Dad and I had a fun time. Richard and Jon went boogie boarding and body surfing. Arcadia liked the water at first but it was a little too cold for her. The water was great and the beach was great. But once you went back to the condo sand was not your friend. Don't get me wrong it was a lot better than sitting in sand for the hour drive home from when we were younger. Though I swear the drains in the condo complex were full of sand. hahaha.



After just an hour or so in the water we got a little exhausted. So we tried to build a sand castle. Of course I don't have the skills of a sand castle master and the castle didn't last that long at all.









Since we couldn't get a sand castle to stay up. We decided to bury Richard. Arcadia loved seeing her Dad in the sand. Everyone helped to get him all covered. With everyone's help it took no time to get him covered.

Arcadia all sandy from covering her Dad with sand.

Yay! For Sand!

The finished product. Arcadia had to sit on Dad to let Grandma take a picture. Then she started to walk on him. lol





Monday June 13th, was Disneyland. It was about a hour to hour and a half drive to Disneyland from Oceanside. Everyone else has a GPS to get there but Jon and I had to use our reliable phones to get us there. We arrived at Disneyland somewhat early. It was hotter at Disneyland than in Oceanside. First we went on the popular Pirates of the Carribean ride. Then we went on the boat tour. I forgot what it was called but it's next to the Indiana Jones ride. The only thing that was a bummer of going to Disneyland while you are pregnant was that you can't go on the fun rides. :(



Mekensy loved the boat ride.

























After the boat ride everyone went their different ways for a little bit. Jon and I went and got something to eat. Then went to find some rides that both Jon and I can go on. And I forgot to put sunscreen on my head and Amanda and Richard had our sunscreen, so I got a hat. Jon and been saying for a while know that he likes me in a hat. So we got me a hat. It wasn't bad to wear a hat at all. After we got the hat from fantasyland we went and got in line for the "It's a smal world" ride. I had to have some proof that Jon went to Disneyland or no one would really believe me. lol

Me and my cute new hat from Mad Hatters in front of "It's a Small World" ride. :)

I knew that they had redone the ride. But I didn't know that they included some disney movies in the ride. After the first movie we saw we spent the rest of the ride trying to find every movie they included in the ride.

This was when I was looking for any movies. And I tried to get a picture of Jon on the ride but nope he knew I was taking it and stuck out his tongue.

The first movie we saw was Alice in Wonderland.

We found Cinderlla and her mice.



The reason why I took a picture of these two was because they were moving their feet the way Jon does when he is laying down and laughs.

From Jon's favorite Disney movie Aladdin. Jasmine and Aladdin themselves.

I took thea picture of the frogs. . . .well because I love frogs. lol Jon found them for me. :)




It was hard to find her but we found Mulan hiding in a corner.

We think that the 3 Hienhas (spelling?) were from Lion King but we could be wrong.

I have never seen this movie but I have heard of it. I believe, if I am wrong please correct me, these 3 are from the Disney movie from the 3 amigos.



AWHA! I got a picture of Jon on the ride without him noticing. hehehehehehehehehehe! Sucess!

Ariel from Little Mermaid with some of her sisters.

Dory and Martin from Finding Nemo. We couldn't find Nemo or any other characters from the movie.





Lilo and Stitch riding the waves.

I didn't expect to find them in the ride but we did.
Woody and, oh man I just forgot her name.

After the ride Jon some kids with their face painted and thought I would look cute with my face painted. It was a little weird being the only adults there getting our face painted but it made us laugh.

When we were looking through the book of what they could paint on our faces. Jon found one with a baseball on fire. And asked if they could do it with a soccerball instead. We loved it. It made us feel like kids again but it got itchy after a while and we would accidently wipe our face and wipe off a part of our painted face. lol Good thing we got pictures before that happened.

Jon in Micky's toontown.

On the way out we heard some familar songs across the way. We went over to check it out and it was the good old Mary Poppins.

Jon and I left Disneyland after I got my t-shirt I wanted and going on the rides we could. It wore us out but it was nice. We both took a long nap when we got back to the condo.

Tuesday, June 14th - We all stayed home and enjoyed the beach. It was a clearer day than on Sunday at the beach. It was fun though. And I had forgotten my camera at the condo.

After we got back from the beach my cousins from Yuma, Arizona show up to play. They went out to the beach and we stayed in for a little bit. That was when Jon's sunburn started to show. He thought that he was going to have his shirt on the entire time we were playing at the beach but that didn't happen.

Jon and his BAD sunburn the day after.
Wednesday, June 15th

One thing that Jon decided to try was WEARING FLIPFLOPS! He usually never liked to be awake without not having socks on. But since Jon and I went to walk on the beach every night he didn't like having to carry both his sock and shoes. So he tried Flipflips. At first he thought they were weird feeling and a little uncomfortable but he did get use to them after a couple of days. I had to get a picture of him wearing them because I thought once we get home he won't wear them again. Well I thought wrong. He tried on Anthony's flipflops, which were more comfortable than Wal-Mart flipflops and now he wears them almost everyday. lol

Later in the day we all decided to go to Sea World around 2pm-3pm. Cause we knew that Sea World wasn't as big as Disneyland. And it would be a little cooler. We first went to the Shamu show "Believe". Jon had never been to Sea World and he liked it. He laughed every time everyone else below us got splashed by Shamu.

I was really proud of myself because I was able to get some really go shots of the whales in the air. There were 3 whales in the show. We also enjoyed some Dippin Dots during the show. Thanks to Mom who got them for everyone.

I have many pictures from the show but these are the best.

Everyone watching the show. Our cousins Miles, Karen and their family joined us at Sea World that day. :)

I had some more great pictures of my, I think amazing, picture taking from the show but I accidently erased them. I couldn't put them back on because it took me an hour just to put all the photos on in order. If you want to see them they will be on my facebook page.

After Shamu's show we went to a bunch of exhibits. First the Shark exhibit because Kylee loves sharks.

This fish loved getting it's picture taken. It just kept staring at us. lol


There was a exhibit were you could pet and pick up the starfish as long as you kept them in the water. It was pretty cool.

I love this turtle. When I first took the picture I didn't know what type of turtle it was. And they didn't have a sign on what type of turtle is was either. Then the other day I was on msn.com and it had a video on the main page about leather back turtles. I watched the video and found out that this turtle is really a Leather Back Turtle, which is a rare spieces.

The penguin exhibit had a lot of different penguins.

The polar bear kept going in and out of this cave like place and everyone kept saying, "there it's goes inside" but then a moment later it would show up on the other side. lol

It was surprising how white beluiga whales are.

After all the exhibits it was time for the night shows. We went to the dolphin night show. Trevor wanted to sit in the wet section to get wet. So we sat him down in front of us and we sat 2 row up from him. They were excited for the show.

Thursday, June 16th- Was another resting/beach day for everyone. Jon and I went shopping and got him a hat and me some clothes. Then we went to Chili's with my sister and her family. That night Jon's sunburn kept him up. And we were suppose to go with Mom and Dad to Wild Animal Park with the grandkids. But Jon and I were up till 2:30 am trying to stop his sunburn from hurting. He finally fell asleep and slept in.
Friday, Jun 17th - Unfortanely we weren't able to go to the Wild animal park with them. So since Jon had work on Sunday and his sunburn was itching like crazy we decided to head home. We decided to ride all the way home instead of spending the night somewhere because it was easy to stop every hour or so and drive. We got home about midnight Saturday. It was nice to be home but sad the fun was over. Thank you Mom and Dad for taking us to California. We loved it.